Jason Wachob: Defining True WellTH & How I Learned to Build a Life, Not a Resume

Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.

Guy: This week we catch up with Jason Wachob, founder of the health and wellness online media giants mindbodygreen. The independent media brand is dedicated to wellness with over 10 million monthly unique visitors! He has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Goop, and Vogue.

We cover his personal journey of health transformation inspired him to start MBG, his health discoveries, meditation, stress-reduction strategies, his brand-new book ‘WellTH’, the power of the breathe and even Wim Hof the Iceman!Use Snapchat? Follow me at: GuyL180 or Click Here.

Audio Version

Questions we ask in this episode:

What was the defining moment to make you reevaluate your own work-life-health balance?

What do you think will be the next big thing in wellness?

What ‘one thing’ do you think can have the most positive impact on our health?

Why did you write your new book – Wellth?

What does true wealth look like to you?

What are your non-negotiables to be the best version of yourself?

And much much more…

Get More Of Jason Wachob:

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Full Transcript

Guy:
Hey, this is Guy Lawrence from 180 Nutrition and welcome to today’s health session, where we cut through the confusion by connecting by leading global health and wellness experts to share the best and the latest science and thinking, empowering people to turn their health and lives around. We’re doing it this week with the awesome Jason Wachob. He is the founder and CEO of mindbodygreen. If you’re not familiar, they are a health and wellness company, media company, that is, and they now have I think over 12 million hits a month. They’re big in the industry, they’ve influenced my life and they’ve influenced many people’s lives around the globe with their message. It was fantastic to have Jason on today.
We get into lots of topics, we discuss his new book, Wellth: How I Learned to Build a Life, Not a Résumé. We also dive into his own personal journey, meditation, breath work, and how he actually manages as an entrepreneur with so many situations going on, keep everything and his health in check and all the rest of it. I thoroughly enjoyed today’s interview. He’s a top guy, and there’s lots of wisdom for sure in this podcast, no doubt. If you’re on Snapchat, I actually joined a couple of weeks ago, come and say hi. Just look at the user name GuyL180. That’s my user name. Come and check it out, say hi. Always great to meet like-minded people. I share behind the scenes of what I’m doing, even with these podcasts, how I’m filming, what’s in my day as well. I’m enjoying this so far, it’s a lot of fun. Anyway, let’s go over to Jason. Enjoy.
Hi, this is Guy Lawrence. I’m joined with Stuart Cooke, as always, hi Stuart.Stu:
Hello, mate.Guy:
Our awesome guest today is Jason Wachob. Jason, welcome to the show.Jason: Thanks for having me, guys.Guy:
I really appreciate it. Jason, just to start the conversation. If you were sitting on an airplane and a complete stranger sat next to you and said, “Hi, what do you for a living?” How would you answer that?Jason:
Wow. I would say I run a health and wellness media company called mindbodygreen.Guy:
Perfect. My next question would be to you is just to get familiar with our listeners as well, is what is mind, body, and green, and what inspired you to start it in the first place, because it’s obviously a big mission.Jason:
Sure. I’ll start with the story. I’m 6’7″. I played basketball college a long time ago, I’m 41 now. Back then, this was 1998, there were no startups, guys like me either … if they had grades, maybe they went to law school. If they had an aptitude for science and wanted to help people, they went to med school. Or if they had none of the above, they went to Wall Street, so I became a trader. Largely because I grew up with no money and always wanted money. I saw money as freedom, I saw money as something that I could pay off my college debt … and so I went on to Wall Street and was able to do well enough to pay off my debt, bought my mother a car, probably a little freedom. While that was happening, at the same time, finally I reached this financial success and it was the worst month of my life because a relationship was falling apart. Very sharp contrast, here all I want is money, and I’m miserable. I saw really quickly that money did not buy happiness.
9/11 happened a little after that here in America. It really changed my perspective and it sort of led me down this entrepreneurial path. Fast forward to about 7 or 8 years ago, I was running a startup, doing a lot of flying. I flew almost 150,000 miles domestic in a year. 6’7″ me, coach seat. Do the math, not so great. It turned out that I had an old basketball that was exacerbated by all the flying and stress. I was stressed in my mind at the time. I had two extruded discs pressing on my sciatic nerve, L4, L5, S1. My right leg was like a lightning rod. I could not walk, it was terrible.
I went to a doctor, he said, “You need surgery. It’s not negotiable.” I don’t think surgery’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s just something I wanted to avoid. I sought a second opinion, and he said the same thing. Then it was almost like an afterthought, he said, “You know, maybe some yoga or therapy might help.” I was like, “Okay, I’ll give this yoga thing a shot.”
I started doing some really light yoga in the morning, in the evening, like 10-15 minutes. I started to feel better over the course of a few weeks, and over the course of a few months, I completely healed, so I never got surgery. It was like, “Holy cow!” This started to get me down this path and I started to look at things like stress and the mind and nutrition and the environment and all these things played a role in health, and I was like, “Holy cow, everyone’s got health wrong.” It’s not about just vanity and weight loss, it’s this lifestyle. Mind, body, green. That’s how I got the idea for mindbodygreen quite literally, so that’s how it all started.Guy:
Just one question from that, because I was intrigued by the back thing.Jason:
Sure.Guy:
Loads of us suffer it. I’m tall, I’m 6’4″ and … because I was reading your book last night, Jason, and I was intrigued for you to mention about the relationship with stress and the pain and the mechanics of having a sore back. How much do you think your lifestyle and just stress itself played a part on the back pain?Jason:
Oh, yes, stress is huge, stress is everything. I believe that stress … A couple of things. I believe that stress follows you. You always have stress. I believe in the term stress management, not stress reduction. You never get to this place where stress just disappears, it just changes, so to me, it’s about management. I’ve also found that, at least for me personally, stress tends to hit you where you are at your weakest. My lower back was structurally weak. Years later when I had a parasite in my stomach and took some time to recover from that, when I was stressed, my stomach would act up. I’ve seen it in other injuries I’ve had, I think stress follows you and tends to heat you at your weak points in your body. That’s what I had seen. My lower back at the time, that was weak. I also believe that the lower back, if you at … if we’re going to get all woo-woo and talk about spirituality and the chakras, lower back tends to revolve around money worries. At the time, I was really worried about money, and it was one of those instances where you can stuff this stuff is out there, it’s New Agey, and then when it hits home, you’re like, “Oh my God, there’s some truth to this stuff.”Guy:
Incredible, incredible. [inaudible 00:07:13] Stu, one last question. What intrigues me as well is that you’re an entrepreneur, you were flying around the country, I think it was for the organic cookie company at the time, if I’m not mistaken. Then you realized all these stresses … because we obviously have our company we’re running to, and can feel your pain, but then you go and start up another company. It could have been easier for you to go, “You know what, I’m just going to slow down, get a job,” and yeah. Why?Jason:
I thought about it. It just sort of happened. I went into mindbodygreen, I was really passionate about the subject matter and just really dove in, and we’ve been at it for 7 years all in, full time. Sure, I definitely have moments these days where I’ve joked, “All this wellness is making me sick.” I do think, specifically in health and wellness with regards to entrepreneurs, we’re all so passionate about what we do, you tend not to turn it off. Then you find a problem, well, what happened to my yoga practice, what happened to my meditation? What happened to my making all these people better, what about me? I definitely fall into that, something I try to be mindful of. I would say running a company … I think we have like 30-something employees now is definitely more stressful for me than being a trader.Stu:
Just to bring it back a little bit to the numbers then. I wonder whether you could just drop a few stats for our audience, because I don’t know whether they understand the gravity or the enormity of mindbodygreenn. Jason:
Sure. We have between 10 and 12 million unique visitors, so essentially readers, a month all over the world.Stu:
Fantastic, that’s a big boost. Why do you think mindbodygreen has become so successful? How’s that happen?Jason:
Sure. I think a couple of things. One is I think we really are defining health and the way it should be defined. I don’t think it’s just about the body. I still think a lot of health publications got that wrong where it’s all about the body. Maybe they’re getting a little mind, but a lot of them miss the environment piece. If we’re putting toxins into our bodies, into our homes, if we’re not connecting with nature, that’s disastrous for your health. I think to some degree, we’re probably still, I think the only sizable media company that covers wellness, with that three-pronged approach, and to me, that’s simple. You eat all three, that’s crucial.
That’s one thing. I think we were early to a more holistic lifestyle. I think we’re good at headlines, I think our content is good, and I think that our … we have 4,000 contributors who write for us around the world. I think that’s been a large part of our success and I think we’ve been successful there because it started organically from an authentic place where I was smart enough to know I wasn’t the smartest guy around. I started [inaudible 00:10:21] health journey, I run around New York and I’m meeting yogis, I’m meeting doctors, and I’m interviewing them, and then some of them started to guest blog. It just sort of happened. That went from 5, to 10, to 100, to 4,000, and so that sort of fueled the beast.
We have incredible relationships with great people in the industry. I think all those things, I think being … at the end of the day, I think you have to be really, really good at content. I think our content’s really good, and I think it still speaks to people in this … and speaking to mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, environmental well being. I don’t think really anyone does that; I think we do that really well.Guy:
That’s excellent. I mean there’s definitely a hunger for information. We’ve seen it from this end in Australia as well, with the popularity in our podcast. People are just looking for other answers. I’d be interested to think … we’re still experiencing a health crisis, I know here in Australia and I’ve no doubt the US is the same. Are you optimistic about the future?Jason:
I am.Stu:
Well I guess you ought to be.Jason:
I think slowly but surely, you’re seeing major brands here waking up, making adjustments. You see soda sales declining, you see … I see it happening, I really do. I think change is in the air, I think you have a younger generation who wants more transparency in terms of ingredients, in terms of manufacturing, I think people are waking up in a lot of ways. I’m really optimistic.Guy:
Yeah, fantastic. You do see it.Stu:
You’ve got a whole [inaudible 00:12:05] of contributors. You’re linked to numerous health and wellness experts around the globe, so I guess you probably got a pretty clear indication about the next big thing in wellness. What is it? We’ve seen gluten, we’ve seen sugar, microbiome, [crosstalk 00:12:22], the power of the mind now. [inaudible 00:12:26] a few weeks ago and he blew … people love the stuff he said. In your opinion, what’s the next big thing in wellness?Jason:
I think it’s all of those things. Microbiome, [inaudible 00:12:42], I think, one thing, this idea of Western catching up to Eastern medicine is really awesome, where we talk about ideas like eating more vegetables, or stress kills, or yoga’s good for you. This idea that Western medicine is really supporting that in a big way I think is really great. I also think this idea of coming back to a lifestyle is really important, where I think … we tend to go into extremes, and sometimes extremes are good, and sometimes extremes save lives, but I think it comes down to defining a lifestyle and finding balance. I think balance is the new achievement in a lot of ways, but really defining balance, what does that look for you? How do you live your way, with your life in a healthy way, which you can maintain over time versus going to an extreme that maybe holds for 6 months, 9 months and you fall off the wagon or you’re discouraged and just go to shit and then you start all over again. I think balance is coming back. At least that’s what I’m searching for.Guy:
Same, yeah. But people almost seem to have to feel intense pain first and go through … I don’t know, some kind of almost trauma or something to then slingshot them out the other way and finding … as opposed to just doing the small, simple changes over time. It’s like you have to have chronic back pain, you’re traveling hundreds of thousands of miles by an airplane to go change, this is enough. I do wonder if we can … if people can actually bring this on board before they even have to get to that point. It’s [inaudible 00:14:26] between, but …Jason:
I think, you know if you look at … if you speak to the size of mindbodygreen, most of our audience are young women. The average age is 31, and nothing’s wrong with them. They’re living this way because they want to feel good. It’s not necessarily … maybe a little bit preventative, but living this way feels good, and I do think you’re getting growing number of young people who are just excited that … living this way feels good. Nothing’s wrong with them yet, they’re not necessarily worried about disease prevention, it just feels good, and I think that’s great.Guy:
Yeah, that’s awesome. What kind of content you find resonates the most for people, like they’re hungry for the most?Jason:
It’s everything. We’ve had stuff on relationships, nutrition, movement, death … we had a post about death that do extremely well … the environment. It runs the gamut, it really does.Guy:
Yes, across the board. That’s great.Stu:
Thinking about … you’re across the board in everything. Do you think that you could pull one piece of information out that would have the most positive impact on our health and that may be mind, body, green … Well let’s think about mind. You got to get your mind set first. What do you think will have the biggest impact, just for … one little piece. Guy:
I think, if I were to go pillar by pillar, I would say for the mind, recognizing that stress can really kill, and finding some sort of practice to help manage stress, whether that’s meditation or mindfulness or tai chi or whatever it may be, just find something … or breathing exercises that are really simple. Find a practice to help you manage … not reduce … manage stress. For the body, I always say eat more vegetables. If you can eat mostly vegetables, you’re probably going to be okay. More vegetables, less sugar, less processed food, it’s much … a lot of vegetables.
From the green point of view, I think you got to do a sweep of what’s in your home. What’s in the kitchen cabinet, what’s in the bathroom, are you putting toxins all over your body? There are a lot of great clean products out there. I think people are a little more self-aware there, but that’ll be the one thing. You don’t want to be meditating and eating clean and then destroying yourself through toxins getting in your body, you’re getting all these benefits …Stu:
Right, fantastic.Guy:
It’s interesting, because we’ve been podcasting now for three and a half years and we’ve had some amazing guests on. Stress definitely is the most understated I think by the public, but everyone we’ve interviewed have kind of emphasized it enough, stress management is crucial. I’d be interested to hear … because clearly, you’re in a … you’ve got a stressful job, or it could be, you could let it get to you. What are your kind of stress management techniques or things that you do?Jason:
I meditate daily. I do 20 minutes of [inaudible 00:17:52] meditation or TM, have a mantra repeated over and over. I do 20 minutes everyday, I never miss a day. I won’t to twice a day everyday, but I’ll always do once a day. That’s big for me. I will do yoga twice a week, maybe three times a week if I’m lucky. I do 15 to 20 minutes here at home. I’ll go to the gym maybe once a week or I’ll do some push ups and sit ups, I’ll do something to move, and I walk. If I’m ever really stressed, I’ll just get out and go for a walk. That seems to work for me, I think.
I think the key is to find something that fits with the lifestyle. Yoga changed my life, it saved my life. I was so into yoga, I would go to a public yoga class like almost everyday. Then as work demands just kept increasing, everyday became three days a week, the next thing you know it’s once a month, and then I sort of like, “What happened to my yoga practice?” Then I decided, okay, my workload is probably not going to change, but how can I adjust, what can I commit to, and that was doing yoga on the weekends for 15 and 20 minutes, I’ll never miss it.
It’s also important to recognize the idea that the best exercise is the one you actually do. I never miss that, I commit to it, versus the 90 minutes … I think people fall into those traps with exercise sometimes. The other mistake I think they fall into is picking something they don’t like. If you don’t like it, you’re not going to do it.Guy:
Fun is so important.Jason:
[crosstalk 00:19:36] If I hate running, I’ll never run.Guy:
I’m the same there, I’m the same there. I’m going to dig a little bit into meditation for a second, because I meditate everyday myself. I’ve never looked into transcendental meditation, but I’m assuming that you were given a mantra personally, is that correct?Jason:
Yup.Guy:
How effective have you found that? The actual transcendental meditation? Jason:
I love it. I really tune out, I lose myself half the time and I walk out of it, and I almost feel like a fog has lifted. I feel refreshed and sometimes I magnify by having coffee.Guy:
Yeah.Jason:
It’s great, it’s really been great for me. It looked like being an entrepreneur, running a company, or just life, it’s stressful, and to me, it’s really, really helped. I literally feel like a fog lift afterwards, kind of amazing.Guy:
Yeah, that’s interesting.Stu:
Just on that relaxation and meditative techniques as well, how do you sleep, given the fact that I would imagine you would have all [inaudible 00:20:40] stuff buzzing around at your head at all times?Jason:
Sure. I’m actually a pretty good sleeper. I’ve never really … in every once in a while, maybe, but for the most part, I’m pretty good at putting whatever is stressing me out like over here, away, at night, and then going to bed, and then coming back to it. I’ve gotten good at that. I think meditation helps exercise that muscle. But I’ve been fortunate that for the most part, I don’t have a problem sleeping. Every once in a while, but not really.Stu:
Okay. That’s interesting.Guy:
That’s very interesting. Because we find … you know, we often discuss meditation, Stu, and many people find that it’s such a difficult habit to start. The brain’s just going all over the place and being able to slow it down, even just for 5 minutes, can be difficult. Last bit, how long have you been meditating for, Jason? Has it been [crosstalk 00:21:36]?Jason:
Like two years, I want to say?Guy:
Okay. Yeah, great. Yeah. I’ve been doing it over a year and I haven’t looked back, it’s fantastic.Jason:
It’s awesome. It really is game changing. I think … look, it’s a performance booster too. I think that’s a big thing for men. Here in the States, meditation’s booming on Wall Street, on Silicon Valley. It’s a performance booster. If you want to be better, if you want to be more creative, if you want to sleep better, all those things, meditation helps. The science is there. I think it’s a no brainer if you can find the time and then find the time, I think everyone has it. Do it anywhere.Stu:
It’s the one thing, and we talk about it again and again on the podcast as well. I struggle with it. I keep saying, you know what, I’m going to do it, I’m going to give it a go, and I haven’t yet. So, I’m going to give it a go.Jason:
There you go.Stu:
Going back to mindbodygreen, for those that haven’t delved into it, it’s not just about the [inaudible 00:22:45] now, is it? Not just that … you’ve got mindbodygreen courses, and I wondered whether you could just riff a bit on that for us. Jason:
Yeah, we have I think 51 online video courses now, and so … the idea there … look, we’re a mission-driven company, we’re looking to help people change their life and I use meditation as an example. Someone reads an article about meditation, they’re all excited, and then what do you do, you’re kind of leaving me out to dry here. So we said, all right, let’s team up with Charlie Knowles. Health fellow, half-Australian. Phenomenal meditation teacher, we’ll do a video class, 6 hours, and he’s one of the best meditation teachers in the world and people will pay for that. We make revenue, Charlie makes revenue, person who reads the article and buys the class, learns meditation, they’re happy, everyone wins.
We started thinking that way, like let’s … look, if you’re looking to really change the world, education is a critical component. We launched with three of them and now we have over 50, ranging from meditation to yoga, to nutrition, to movement, to chakras, to relationships, to self-help, to spirituality, crystal, you name it, and it’s just … it’s awesome. People love it. It’s great, it’s like the thing … you know, if you’re on your journey, no matter where you are, I think there’s a need for that. It’s something I personally wanted and still want, and so it’s been a great product for us.Stu:
Easy to find, you don’t have to dig too deep …Jason:
No, they’re right on, if you go to mindbodygreen.com, you just click on classes, courses on the homepage, and just go through there and there’s tons of them.Stu:
Fantastic. That’s excellent. So, you’ve got the content, you’ve got the courses, and you’ve just written a book as well. I would love for you to tell us a little bit about the book. It’s called Wellth, but it’s not spelled in the financial terms, it’s W-E-L-L-T-H. It looks great. What can we expect if we read it? Jason:
Well, you know, in a lot of ways, I talked about earlier about defining health and happiness, and to me, it’s a good mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and environmental well being. I feel passionate about redefining this word wealth. Like, look, I like money, I got nothing against money, I’d love to have lots of it. But I also think there’s more to life than this idea of wealth. When I was going through my journey, I just lived in the bookstore. I bought hundreds of books, and then … just looking for everything. I go to self-help section, nutrition, and then fitness, and personal growth, and relationships, and everything.
[00:26:00] In a lot of ways, this was the book I wish I had. It touched on everything. It came about, I wrote a blog post on my 39th birthday two and a half years ago, 39 Life Lessons I Learned in 39 Years. I had a lot of these quick snippets that ended up turning into the book. A literary agent reached out and said you know, I think you can expand upon these ideas and create a book. So I did, and shared a lot of personal stories, of lessons I’ve learned along the way, and then incorporated advice from some of the best wellness experts in the world, and then came up with Wellth.Guy:
Fantastic. If you could use one sentence, how would you define true wealth?Jason:
You know, I like to say, like anything, I’m a big believer in this idea that there’s no one size fits all approach to health and wellness, and specific wealth. What it may look like for me is going to look like something different for you guys. For me at the moment, I think wealth is about having time in the day to really find time for meditation and connect with my wife and eat something green and healthy, and just take a few moments to just really savor everything that’s going on in the journey. Because I think a lot of times, it’s very hard to get lost in the journey and just focus on the destination.
I think especially if you’re a Type A person, especially if you’re ambitious … it’s like look, we’re all used to setting goals and charging ahead and kicking ass and accomplishing those goals. That’s great, and we’d still do that, but I think it’s this idea of enjoying the journey along the way and it’s this balance. I think to me, that’s what wealth is at the moment. It’s enjoying the journey, finding … really relishing in it at the same time charging for it.Guy:
Fantastic.Stu:
You’ve got … are there 13 chapters in the book?Jason:
Yes. Stu:
Are those chapters in order of importance? Do we need to start at number 1 or can we just dabble and explore all of them?Jason:
I would say probably start with number 1, but if you’re a dabbler, go ahead and dabble. But I would say, even though the book is not linear in that a lot of the book are personal stories I share, and sort of traces throughout my lifetime and it’s not linear, I would suggest starting with 1. It’s not in importance, although I will say that we start with eat, and there’s a great quote from [Rich Roll 00:28:36], who gave me a blurb from the book, and it’s this idea that health does start with what’s on your plate. So let’s start with eat, and get that out of the way.Stu:
Okay, yeah, good on it, fantastic.Guy:
Excellent. I wanted to raise the chapter on breathing, because I noticed you’ve got a chapter in there on that. Because it’s been something of a personal interest to me, I’ve been exploring the breath over the last 12 months. Are you familiar with Wim Hof, the iceman? Have you heard of Wim Hof at all?Jason:
Vaguely.Guy:
Vaguely, because he’s … we had him on the podcast before Christmas and he’s basically … he’s using cold exposure and also breath work to help boost the immune system.Jason:
Oh wow.Guy:
He’s done 26 crazy world records. He’s climbed Mt. Everest in his shorts. No joke. He’s run a marathon in Finland in minus 20 degrees.Jason:
I’m more a jeans guy, I’m sorry.Guy:
Basically, after having him on, I was very inspired and I booked to go to his 5-day retreat. He’s coming to Melbourne in August. I’m going to delve in and … but I’ve been practicing. I’ve been hyperoxygenating the body just by bringing in breath work, and it’s been quite an interesting charge of energy through the day that I didn’t realize I could do just through breathing. But anyway, I’m going off on a tangent, but …Jason:
I love it.Stu:
Come back, Guy, come back.Guy:
I won’t even bring [inaudible 00:30:08] to the conversation, but I’ve been exploring that as well. I was intrigued to see what your thoughts were, why have a chapter on breathing in the book, and what does it mean to you, just [inaudible 00:30:20]Jason:
To me, I really wanted to … it was a way to get meditation in and have it be approachable. I think meditation for me, as I said, is something that’s big for me and I think there are various forms of meditation, and then talking to Charlie Knowles, I’ll never forget this. His line is, you know, what does he say to someone who says, “No, I can’t meditate?” He says, “Well, can you breathe?” If you can breathe, you can meditate. Meditation for some people may be this thing that’s a lot of work and maybe off over here, but let’s come back to the breath and breathing.
One of the simplest things you can teach anyone, this is something I taught my 70-year-old uncle is, when you’re stressed, no matter if you’re on a grocery line or driving, this idea of breathing. Inhale for two, exhale for four. You do that a couple of times, it works. Relaxes the [inaudible 00:31:24] nerve, like it stimulates a relaxation response, you’re fantastic. It’s so easy, and a lot of ways, breathing is unintimidating, whereas meditation is possibly intimidating for some people. To me, breath is connection and it’s this thing, if we talk about breathing versus this other thing, I think it just makes it so much more approachable and actionable for everyone out there. Stu:
If like me, and a whole heap of other people that say, “Oh no, I can’t meditate, it just doesn’t work,” [inaudible 00:32:05] 10 minutes that everyday, would that be beneficial?Jason:
Yeah, do whatever. I believe everything is beneficial to some degree, you know? Mindfulness practice is great too. Breathing, whatever you … once again, this works for me, and there are some people that doesn’t work for. There are other people who are big in the silent meditation or mindfulness or breath work. Once again, we’re all unique human beings and so, if just doing that 30 seconds a day, that’s great, that’s phenomenal. That’s going to have benefits, and maybe increase it and explore. You know, I think what we also find in our health and wellness journey is things change. I think it’s very rare that you find one thing and then that’s it for life. We evolve. We get bored, we change, metabolically, physically, all these things happen, so it’s like, if this is what feels good now and you can do it, do it.Guy:
Yeah, absolutely. I find it … just even then, just doing that breath, I feel everything just went this … to slow down and feel calm. I find myself automatically doing it now, sometimes I might buy into my own drama of something that’s going on in the day, and I’d stand back and just breathe. Just take a few deep breaths and you can kind of … you know, you can either get addicted to that emotion or you can just sort of let it go and take it for what it is. But yeah, great tips.Stu:
Again, back to the founder of mindbodygreen, you have eminent knowledge about everything health and wellness. What are your non-negotiable practices, so daily non-negotiable practices. Things that you absolutely have to do everyday, what are they?Guy:
Sleep. Got to sleep. I don’t believe you can operate on little or no sleep. I don’t believe that. I come back to meditation, for me. I need to meditate. I need to move. I can’t just walk. [inaudible 00:34:10] and I’ll track my steps. I get a kick out of that. I need to move. It doesn’t have to be running, it doesn’t have to be yoga. I need to like, walk. I’m lucky I can walk to work and back. I need to move, I can’t just walk a few hundred steps and then sit in my desk all day. I can’t do that. I need some sort of movement. I got to have coffee.Guy:
I’m in the same camp with you there, Jason.Jason:
I love coffee, I love black coffee, their health benefits. Then from there, you know, I try to eat pretty healthy. I also believe in indulging every once in a while. I believe life should be enjoyable and you shouldn’t be too … once again, there’s a time and place to be really rigid and sometimes that’s necessary, but for the most part, you got to find balance. I’m a big believer in that.Guy:
A hundred percent. On top of your movement, you know, like you get movement, are there any specific exercise routines that you bring in on a weekly basis?Jason:
With yoga, I do like that. I do like a 15-minute flow. Like [back work 00:35:27], you know, I go downward dog, upward dog, I do it like a nice [inaudible 00:35:32], I do some twists, and just … I mix up a little bit, but it’s like a great flow or I’m moving, but not too fast. I’m getting a little sweat, but it also feels like meditation in motion, and that sort of works for me. It’s like 10 to 15 minutes, just gets me going, gets me loose, gets me feeling nice and easy, and then I sort of wind it down and that’s just heaven to me. Guy:
That’s daily?Jason:
No, that’s what I do like on the weekends, and I’ll try to get … I may get it in right after this. Because as I’m talking about it, you start to feel, oh wow, it’s feeling that flow, it’s like …Guy:
Awesome. Look, we always have a couple of questions to wrap up the show anyway. The first one was what did you eat today?Jason:
For breakfast, and I pretty much have this everday. I have a smoothie with protein powder, take a probiotic, I put almond butter and blackberries in there, that’s what I pretty much have everyday for breakfast with black coffee. I love coffee, specific black. For lunch, I had some baked kale with olive oil with the egg over it. I had for a snack, I had a bulletproof bar. I’m a bar snob, I don’t have a lot of them, but I actually like [inaudible 00:37:02] bars. Then I had some salted cashews. For dinner, I don’t know.Guy:
Fantastic, fantastic. The last question is, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?Jason:
Oh wow.Stu:
You’ve got him going.Jason:
I would say from my mother, “Never settle.”Guy:
Never settle. Be hungry for more, yeah.Jason:
Yeah, never settle for less.Guy:
Yeah. That’s easy to do. Fantastic. Yeah. What does the future hold for yourself and mindbodygreen?Jason:
You know, work is keep on moving, keep on doing what we do, so more content, better content, more classes. We do events, we do this great event called Revitalize, which we’re planning again for this year, so more events. That’s sort of our key offerings. Content, the classes, events, I could see us doing products someday, they go along with the classes, which we’re sort of exploring, but just giving people the content and the tools and offerings to help them with their best life.Guy:
Fantastic. Because it’s a global brand as well, are you going to be doing events in other countries? Like will we see you in Australia anytime, or?Jason:
I’ve never been to Australia. My wife has, and she says I’d love it. Everyone I know … I have so many friends in Australia. I got an email the other day from [inaudible 00:38:40] Gunsberg. Andrew G. over here, that’s [inaudible 00:38:45]. He was like, “When are you going to do an event here?” I’m like, “Oh man, I would love to.” I need … for me to get in a flight for that long, I need a friend with a plane or have to get a great deal on a business class seat because I do not fit …Guy:
It’s a long way, yeah.Jason:
I’d love to, I’d love to. We got a huge following in Australia. I have great friends there. I see the pictures and my friends and like, oh man, my wife’s like, “You’d love it, we’d never move back.”Guy:
Yeah, that is true. That is true.Stu:
You would, you would, it’s a fantastic country. Please, shift it up for priority on your list of things and places to go. We’d love to see you. Fantastic.Jason:
I will too, thank you.Guy:
Awesome. For everyone listening to this that wants to find out more, just go back to mindbodygreen. That’s the URL.Jason:
Yeah, go to mindbodygreen.com and then you can check out the book, Wellth, W-E-L-L-T-H dot mindbodygreen.com, read about it. It’s right there, and you can buy the book on Amazon and all around. It’s out there. I’m on social media @jasonwachab, W-A-C-H-O-B, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.Guy:
Oh you’re on Snapchat now.Jason:
I’m just getting started. Guy:
I joined 3 weeks ago and it’s fun addictive actually. I’m enjoying it.Jason:
It’s kind of cool. Tricky and fun, and yeah, I’m learning it, I’m learning it.Guy:
It’s very personal as well.Jason:
Getting better.Guy:
I’ll hit you up on Snapchat sometime.Stu:
Good on you. Fantastic.Guy:
Jason, thank you so much for your time today. That was fantastic, really appreciate it on the show.Jason:
Likewise. Thank you so much for having me.Guy:
We’ll link to all the … link to the book and the blog on the show notes and we’ll push it across all channels over the next week or two.Jason:
Awesome. Let me know and I’ll share it everywhere.Guy:
Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks Jason.Stu:
Thanks again.Guy:
Thanks, Jason.Jason:
Thanks guys, take care.Stu:
Bye-bye.Jason:
Bye-bye.